Thanks Art!
For anyone interested, some workflow:
Top one is acrylic, large (4.5x5.5'). The entire composition was done in Bryce, same program I did those tile patterns in. Tinted the canvas gray, projected and traced the design with colored pencil... Then 3-4 acrylic passes, very thin layers, with thin applications of gloss medium/varnish in between. Maybe 2 weeks digital, 2 months analog.
Second one is even bigger, close to 4x6'. For this one I spent a couple years collecting photos of the sky at its most glorious, always at around the same time of day. The vibrating crystal was another Bryce creation, but the finished result was very crude and pixilated- really just a map of points in space. I took that into Photoshop and traced over it with the Path Tool, taking care not to distort any of the arcs. This took a week or so- and generating the crystal had taken even longer. Eventually it was clean enough to composite with the cloud images- another 3-4 days there. Tinted the canvas in a blue acrylic gradient, then projected and traced the image with white colored pencil (10 days) before going over the whole thing with gesso and a fine brush to get the vibrations as perfect as possible (2 more weeks). Once this was done I attacked the whole thing with oil paint for another 2 weeks. Probably 3 months total.
Third one was even more complicated, believe it or not. For this one I built the thing out of clay in the garage- the model spilled out of an 8x8x9' frame, so it was huge. 400 pounds of clay, papier mâché,tin foil and copper hose. Painted the model, set up a bunch of rice steamers and other steam making implements, set up a bunch of colored lights and then had my photo shoot. The two uppermost heads had to be built separately- for those I built only half of each head but built it against a mirror so the reflection would complete its symmetry- that allowed for higher precision. I then tinted a canvas gray (big: 62x78") and projected/traced it before completing it in oil. 4 months building model, 2 months painting it.
So yeah, all three of these required a lot of steps to achieve the look they have... Any level of realism in these kinds of visionary works calls for these kinds of labor consumptive efforts. I guess I'm just a sucker for complicated projects.
